It has been reported on Twitter today that she is leaving Russia and moving to Toronto to train with Orser. Yahoo, I say. This is a great move for her, IMO, and I hope it means she will work with a good choreographer. So much untapped potential there.

Given that Russian world-class athletes are very much controlled by their sports federations (and financed by them), I wonder how she got permission from the RSF to move abroad and train under a non-Russian coach. (I remember how Lipnitskaya had to get special permission to leave Eteri for Alexei Urmanov, a sharp contrast to how things work in the West. No American, Canadian or even Japanese skater would have to get permission for a coaching change from their federation.)

I wonder if her decision to do so will harm her standing with the federation and hurt her competition assignments or her scores from Russian judges.

And I wonder who will be footing the bills. Will the RSF finance her move to Canada and the considerable expenses associated with training in Toronto?

Evgenia is a two-time World, European and GPF champion and Olympic individual silver medalist. If she wants to train in Canada, the Russian fed can say nyet---but it's not in their best interest to do so. If Evgenia can continue to win medals for Russia while training in Canada, that's a good thing. If she doesn't win as often as she once did, that is OK too, because Russia has so many excellent young ladies coming up under Eteri's tutelage. So it works out OK both ways.

Gnuwon wrote:Who usually pays for a coaching situation like this......the skater or the association?

The answer depends upon which country you're talking about.

In Russia and China (and North Korea), the federation handles expenses -- ice time, equipment, off-ice training, medical and training services, coaching, costumes, even living expenses. Because they're footing the bill, that gives the federation (which is effectively an arm of the government) a huge amount of control over who works with which coaches and choreographers, who gets assigned to which competitions, music and costume choices, even assigning partners in pairs and dance. The athletes are effectively salaried employees of the state, and follow orders as employees do everywhere (even if those orders include taking performance-enhancing drugs, as recent evidence has alleged). The athletes don't have to worry about juggling their finances or other off-ice details, but can concentrate on training and improving their performance.

This stands in huge contrast to the rest of the world, where the sport largely operates on a free-market basis. Skaters (or their parents) are responsible for the bills, but they can choose their own coaches and partners as well as music, choreography, costumes, training locations, etc. The national federations have much less control: they can suggest things, but their power is mostly limited to selecting who goes to which competitions (and perhaps who the judges might favor or promote).

Given the stark differences between these two approaches, I'm intrigued by how Evgenia's move to a Western coach will be handled financially. Will she pay the bills herself (she does tour and so presumably has an income source, plus she probably has corporate sponsorship deals), or with the RSF continue to fund her training with a foreign coach over whom they exert no control?

For a top Russian skater to move abroad and train with a Western coach is pretty much unprecedented in my memory (and I'm old enough to remember back to the '80s). After the demise of the Soviet Union, when state support for sports abruptly ended, a lot of Russian coaches were forced to move abroad in search of rinks and a living wage, and a few skaters followed them. But that doesn't really happen any more since Putin began funding sports again over the last decade. Evgenia's move feels almost like a small defection, and I suspect it's not winning her any popularity in the RSF. I'm very interested to see how it works out for her.

In the West? No. A skater would be expected to allow their federation to use their image for promotional purposes, and might well be asked to skate some events for free or for a token payment to benefit the federation. But I doubt money would change hands from skater to federation.

Coaches are a different story. When a skater signs with a coach in the West, a percentage is usually written into the contract guaranteeing the coach a small slice of the skater's professional earnings.

But in a country like Russia or China? I've no idea if money changes hands that way. And if it does, it is probably kept very, very quiet.